It All Fell Down
by DarylDixon'sgirl1985
Summary: The documentation of the downfall of a friendship.


**Hey everyone. Here is another assignment story for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is for Astronomy: Galaxies Task two. The task was to write about one or more of the Hogwarts Founders. This is how I saw their descent from friendship to bitter enemies going. There is the mention of character death near the end. And also slight hints at child abduction. I hope you all enjoy the story.**

I watched as my one time friend walked away from the rest of us in shocked horror. It wasn't just what he had said before he walked away that hurt the most. It was the fact that the four of us had made a pact to remain friends until our ends. Then here goes Salazar breaking it. As though his word was not his bond as he claimed it was.

It was slow descent to get to this moment in time and no one saw it coming. I don't even think that Salazar himself saw happening the things that happened. I know I for one didn't see it coming to the end that it was to come to.

It started as all stories do with four young children playing in a yard. Two boys and two girls. Their families had been neighbors all their lives so it was no surprise when the young Gryffindor boy walked over to the home of his neighbor and introduced himself to the young Slytherin boy.

I watched jealously as the two boys cavorted and had all sorts of fun together. Neither one of them seem to want to let a girl like me be part of their fun and games. Looking over across the way I saw another young girl watching the fun very wistfully. I walked over to her because she seemed to be a friendly sort.

"Hello," I said, "my name is Rowena. What's your name?"

"Helga," the small girl answered with a smile almost as big as her face. "They looked like they're having all sort of fun."

I nodded looking wistfully at the duo playing at swords and pirates. I looked over at Helga seeing that she had the customary entertainment for young women of our age. Stitching. I for one wasn't going to be stuck doing rows of stitches all day long. I looked over at the playing boys with a smile on my face and then back to Helga.

"Helga," I began slowly, "why don't we go over and introduce ourselves and see if the boys will let us play their game with them?"

"I don't think they'll let us, Rowena," said the smaller girl.

"Well, let's try. The worst they can say is no. The best they can say is yes."

I took her hand as she set aside her stitching and dragged her over to the boys in question. I cleared my throat as they continued to fight and ignore myself and Helga.

"What?" snapped the one boy who was the more vigorous of the fighters.

"Can my friend and I join you?" I asked him.

"Why would girls want to play with swords?" the other boy asked pondered myself and Helga as the duo circled us.

"Maybe we find sword play as fun as you do," I suggested to him keeping my eye on him while I felt Helga keeping hers glued to the ruder of the boys.

"I think it's a good idea," said the boy who asked girls liking sword play. "What do you say Godric?"

"I suppose," Godric sighed as though it was the worse thing in the world to be seen playing with girls. "But if one of them gets hurt or we get in trouble it is your fault, Salazar."

Salazar, the boy who had taken my fancy, nodded and turned back to myself and Helga and held out his hand for us to shake. "My name is Salazar Slytherin," he said. "Please forgive my friend over there. Godric Gryffindor. He can be a tad rude at times. Do you know much of sword play?"

I nodded as I had studied it because my father wanted his daughter to be able to defend herself when he was away. "My name is Rowena Ravenclaw," I told him shaking his hand. I pointed over to Helga. "This is my friend Helga Hufflepuff."

We spent the day playing swords and pirates and all sorts of fun games. And from that moment we were the best of friends. Even Godric Gryffindor seemed to get over his rude behavior.

The years flew by and our families remained close. Our mothers usually had us all together to teach us our magic lessons. I was a fast learner and I always tried to help out the others. It was then that the idea for a school came into my mind. Someplace that magical children could go and learn from teachers that knew everything there was to know about their certain subject.

"What are you thinking about Rowena?" a very familiar voice asked from behind me.

I turned around with a huge smile on my face as I pulled Salazar into a huge hug. "I was just thinking about an idea that keep running through my mind," I told him. "You are going to think me quite stupid." I sighed as I stopped myself from blurting my idea out right there and then.

"What idea?" came another voice. The voice of Godric Gryffindor. "We like ideas as much as the next person. Do we not Helga?"

Helga gave an elegant nod.

"You have to promise not to laugh at me," I told them as the three of them gathered around me.

"We promise," Salazar told me. "Do we not?" He looked at both Helga and Godric as they both nodded vigorously.

I looked at them each in turn. Then I told them all about the plans that were going through my mind at all times.

"I was thinking that maybe now that we are all finished our learning," I said, "we should open a school. So that other children can learn from people who are above proficient in the subject that they are to be taught. Not that our parents did a bad job of it with us. But I have seen in families with multiple children is hard for the parents to teach them all properly. So we could help those children too."

Helga looked thoughtful like she always does. I knew that she would agree to what I was saying. "I think it's a very good idea, Rowena," she told me with huge smile. "We can help students who need it the most. And we can teach them the proper ways like our parents taught us."

I watched as Godric thought it through. He and Salazar were probably going to be the ones that needed the most convincing that the plan would work out well. I watched him think through whatever he needed to think about. I wasn't expecting what was to come out of his mouth next. "It sounds like an idea of merit to me," he said. "What do you say Salazar?"

"I think I can also see the merit of the idea," Salazar gave his opinion on the matter. But I could see there was something he wasn't saying. Something that was bothering him about the plan that I had come up with. "It's a very good idea, Rowena."

And as the years went on we opened our school. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The idea that had sprung forth from my mind on that sunny spring day. And the downfall of our friendship. It only took one little thing for it all to topple down like a house made of playing cards. That thing being who we'd allow in our school.

"You speak in jest," Salazar hissed as he looked at the three of us. "Do you really think that children from non-magical families will really do well in this new school?"

"Only if they are given a chance," Helga said softly

"A chance?" snarled Salazar as he turned on her. "A chance to what? To be teased for not knowing as much? To be made fun of because they don't know our ways?"

Godric put his arms around his girlfriend as Helga began to softly sob. "That was uncalled for Salazar," he told him.

I nodded as I looked at my boyfriend, Salazar Slytherin. Salazar was never usually like this with any of us. Something must be wrong. I'd have to remember to talk to him about it later.

"Then we will break our students into houses," I suggested. "And each of us take the students that we want to teach. Or we think will be able to best learn from us."

With that the argument was settled. The Houses of Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw were formed. Already I knew that this was to be the calm before the storm. I tried to talk to Salazar about what was happening with him but he accused me of being to nosy and pushed me away. The next day we broke up but we still remained friends.

I watched Salazar begin to become distant with everyone that wasn't part of his house or his family. He pushed away everyone even Helga. Even Godric. Even myself.

That is when they found it. One day during lessons there was a commotion out in the hall. I could hear the screaming coming from outside my classroom door.

"Continue reading chapter thirteen," I told my class I went to the door.

I opened the door to find two Hufflepuff students in the hall carrying the body of a third student between the pair of them. Everyone else who was in the hall realized what I had yet to know. The third student was indeed dead. I ran over to the three boys shock reading clear on my face as I came to realize what everyone else had.

"What is matter?" asked Helga's soft voice. "What..." she stopped short seeing the three small boys. "Oh my..."

"What...?" Godric stopped short as Helga turned and sobbed into his chest. He looked over her shoulder to see what was clearly wrong.

It was then that we noticed who wasn't among us there in the hallway. I looked around me as the hall slowly started to fill with other students. But no sign of Salazar Slytherin. But I knew where he'd be at this moment. He'd be down where he made his beloved common room.

I stormed through the hallways after Godric, Helga, and I had dealt with the situation of the dead boy in the hallway. We had sent the rest of the students, except for the Slytherin students, back to their respective common rooms. The Slytherin's went to the Great Hall to wait until we dealt with their head of house.

I watched as Salazar released my young daughter, Helena from his grasp. I shook my head at him sadly because I already knew that answer to the question I was going to ask.

"Did you have something to do with the dead Hufflepuff boy?" I asked Salazar. I heard my daughter, my Helena, sob loudly as the news that the boy was dead hit her.

"I told the students not to roam near that bathroom," Salazar said. "If they don't want to listen be it upon their own heads, Rowena." He grabbed Helena's arm and tried to drag her after him.

"Let her go," came Godric's voice from behind me. "Be a man, Salazar and let the girl go. Talk to us. Tell us why you are doing this?"

"I don't have to explain anything to any of you," he hissed pushing my daughter at me. "You should have taken my advice and only admitted purebloods. They'd have know how to handle the snake."

I looked at him yet again not recognizing my friend of the past in this monster in our midst. "You either get rid of your snake," I told him. "Or we will find someone else to take over the responsibilites Slytherin House."

And now we all watch him walk away from shock horror filling the four of us. The horror of knowing that somewhere in the school their was something that could kill us. Anyone of us. And knowing that our once best friend had put it there.

 **I hope you all enjoyed It All Fell Down. This is my first time writing for any of the Hogwarts Founders in this type of serious piece. I hope I did them justice.**


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